Links for this week

Every week, I help compile a short mailout of interesting stories for the Open Society Institute’s Information Program, which aims to update their colleagues in the Soros network and friends further afield about the news, opinions and events the Program team have their eye on. Since the mailout is released Creative Commons, and usually contains a really excellent spectrum of information society issues, I also share the links on this blog.

Can India stop ACTA?
Michael Geist analyses the news that India may form a coalition of developing economies against the controversial anti-counterfeiting treaty currently being negotiated by the world’s richest nations.

Pakistan lifts ban on Facebook
The UK’s Guardian newspaper reports that Pakistan has lifted a two-week ban on Facebook, following controversy surrounding “blasphemous” depictions of the prophet Muhammad. Pakistan has stated that it plans to continue blocking individual pages on Facebook.

Medvedev views Internet as Russia’s route to direct democracy
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has publicly suggested that the internet will transfer Russia from a representative to a direct democracy: “I am absolutely confident that there will come an epoch of return from representative democracy to direct democracy with the help of the internet”, he said.

Publish What You Spend
A former aid monitoring coordinator for Transparency International Georgia lifts the lid on secret NGO budgets: “Secrecy and charity make for strange bedfellows. Those who spend the public’s money in the name of the poor have a duty to make themselves accountable to rich and poor alike by publicly explaining how this money is being spent.”

Sage Bionetworks conference: data and health
A video recording of Dr. Stephen Friend’s introduction to April’s Sage Bionetworks Congress on radically accelerating disease treatment discovery through the use of large, open datasets.

Digital Activism Decoded
This recently published book promises to aid understanding of the mechanics underlying digital activism: “This new field, its dynamics, practices, misconceptions, and possible futures are presented together for the first time”. The book is available for free download.